So I read this sentence last week from a book I’m reading. It was quite simple but it hit me like a rock. John Mark comer says in his book The ruthless elimination of hurry, “If you love God the father and want a living, thriving relationship with him where you experience his presence throughout your day, then you have to carve out time to be alone with him.”
Woah, what a great reminder. Same goes for any relationship. You have to take time for them, not just make time. You have to TAKE it from somewhere else.
Anyway, to be honest with ya’ll, this has been something I’m struggling with lately. I have not been carving out time to be in solitude with the Lord or even myself for that matter. How funny that the very thing we know we need, we continue to run away from or distract ourselves from? I know I need time to rest, and time that I can be quiet with the Lord because it helps me thrive and helps my relationships to thrive. But what do I do instead, distract myself and do everything else under the sun. Romans 7:15 anyone? John Mark comer goes on to talk about the consequences of not being in solitude. He states that we feel distant from God, and distance from ourselves. We lose sight of our identities and our callings. We then begin to feel anxiety that never really goes away. We become exhausted and then turn to our escapes/ coping mechanisms of choice. These tend to be quick fixes like alcohol or social media or Netflix (or whatever that is for you). AND these distractions can often disguise themselves as GOOD THINGS. Like investing in friendships, or work, or travel etc. They tend to be good distractions and easy to do. Then when I stop and I ask myself why I am doing this? My answer most often is because it’s easy and everyone else is doing it too so it’s okay right. Like man it is so much easier for me to go to other people/things than it is to lean into the discomfort of my own thoughts and feelings. And this is because it is tough. I forget that leaning into the discomfort often can bring freedom and healing.
John goes on to talk about an alternative to all this though.
It is where you find that quiet place. Maybe it’s a park, a routine, a couch or a specific space. We take time to slow down and breathe and just be. We come back to the present and start to feel again. We tend to feel it all and often it is the lousy emotions first. But when we create space for silence and solitude in our lives John states that “we face the good, the bad and the ugly in our own hearts. Our worry. Our depression. Our hope. Our desire for God; our lack of desire for God. Our sense of Gods presence; our sense of his absence. Our fantasies; our realities. All the lies we believe; the truth we come home to. Our motivations. Our addictions. The coping mechanisms we reach for just to make it through the week. All of this is exposed and painfully so. But rather than leaking out on those we love most, it is exposed in the safe place of the fathers love and voice.”
In that silence we slowly come to a place of freedom. Freedom from our failures, and our successes. They begin to lose power. In silence and solitude our souls finally come home and we rest. Ya’ll I started crying. I know classic haha. But I want that. I want to be emotionally healthy and feel like myself again. I want to be free to just be, and be present where I am at. But I know that takes work, oh man does it take work.
So what is that for you? What are you distracting yourself from that you need to create space to process or deal with? This is my encouragement to you as well as myself to make time for solitude. Whatever that looks like for you. Take time to get quiet from all the noise of life and be alone with God, or just with yourself and nature. Go for a walk, read a book, turn off your phone for a day. Do things that are life giving and not soul crushing. Man is it a humbling and refining experience.
So here’s to prioritizing things that are important to us and that we need in this season. Make time for it.
Cheers,
<3 Cass
P.S. I highly recommend the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Give it a read, it’s so good.
I love you ??
What a great practice to incorporate into your life! I think we all have this subconsious belief that ‘when we get it (everything that needs doing) all done, THEN we can rest. However, the insidious lie is that we can actually complete everything in a day. Therefore, we strive to get it all done in a week, a month, a year, a lifetime…and we miss out on the rest. Like you said, we have to TAKE it and carve it out of the busy-ness.